Personal Values Examination

Use this exercise to clarify your core values. Having done so, you can apply the same clarification process to any theory or model you read about in this course.

Think of one of your core values. Then write down answers to the following questions:

• Was this a value you chose freely?
  • How did you make a personal decision to make it a core value? Or did you adopt it from your family or culture?
• Was your core value chosen from real alternatives?
  • For example: You might value eating bran flakes for breakfast. When you go to a store, you see part of a long aisle filled with different brands of bran flakes that are basically the same. How do you select one brand over another? When faced with these options, is it a choice among real alternatives? In the case of your core value, which alternatives did you consider before deciding this value was core?
• How long have you been practicing your core value?
• How has experience been a teacher? What was the most important lesson you learned by practicing it?
• How do you regain a sense of integrity when you discover that you have unintentionally acted in opposition to it?
• If you were challenged by someone in a public setting about the validity of the core value you chose for this discussion, how would you defend it?